tower flanked

Having an afternoon off, and desiring to stretch ones legs, your humble narrator soon found himself in familiar locale- First Calvary Cemetery in Queens.

There are are four properties which comprise Calvary, the original occupies a hill called Laurel, and was founded in 1848 by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. The combined properties host better than three million interments, making it the most densely populated cemetery on the planet. One often witnesses things there that most would describe as “odd”.

On this particular day, I noticed a trail of disturbed earth.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

It seemed as if some enormous slug like “thing” had pulled itself along, tearing out the turf as it convulsed and contracted and slithered. My first instinct was that whatever it was, it probably secreted acid from its skin, which is why the grass was so thoroughly scrubbed away.

Great size was suggested not just by the size of its trail but by a several inches deep disturbance of the soil.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The thing would have had to been enormous, a giant even by the scale of earlier aeons. Always fragile when confronted with strong emotions and unexpected stimuli, my brain began to throb with panic. Would… could such a creature, exist here?

Then a synaptic leap was accomplished, and remembered was the proximity of the nearby Newtown Creek- and the reportedly mutagenic qualities of its subaqueous sediments found nearby the Phelps Dodge site.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Close to experiencing “one of my states” at this point, my thoughts raced… could the organocoppers and volatile organic compounds known to exist in nearby waters have given rise to some sort of amphibious mutation of enormous size and unknown intent? Does some sort of blasphemous thing, a perverted and debased evolution of innocent sea life, rip its bulk from the protective depths and wander around the cemetery at night?

Would this explain the perennial existence of muddy streaks observed on the corner of Laurel Hill Blvd. and Review Avenue?

– photo by Mitch Waxman

My delicate constitution, carefully balanced and maintained by a staff of doctors and medical professionals, demands that one remain reticent. This is when one of the curative tablets one has been commanded to always have at the ready was consumed, causing my heart to cease its racing action.

So steadied- an examination of my preposition, that an enormous slug like mutation born in a 20 foot thick layer of industrial waste and sewer sediment- the so called Black Mayonnaise- lining the bed of the Newtown Creek, might seem a bit far fetched.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

To be fair, there is evidence that Phelps Dodge supplied refined materials for the Manhattan Project- specifically Tellerium- which would introduce radioactivity into the story. I can tell you categorically that in all the meetings I’ve attended concerning the Newtown Creek, and in all the scientific literature I’ve read about the place- not once have I heard or read about radioactivity (in the water).

There is no truth to the rumors common in Maspeth regarding a huge snapping turtle that rose from Newtown Creek and terrorized the community for an entire summer in the early 1950’s either, I am told.

Oddly enough, every time I meet somebody who works in government, the first thing they’ll say to me is: “There is no truth to the rumors common in Maspeth regarding a huge snapping turtle found there in the summer of 1954.”

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This track way is clearly not that of a snapping turtle, I would mention.

There would be distinct foot prints, as well as a defined pattern shaped by the tail.

It would be ridiculous to even suggest that this was the track left behind by an enormous snapping turtle of the sort rumored to have caused the death of several dogs and one mule in Maspeth during 1954, a situation which afflicted the community from the early spring and which only ended after a singular night, in August, which set the tongues of area wags wagging. The sudden appearance and deployment of several Army units accompanied by hundreds of Plain Clothes Police to the industrial quarters nearby the Haberman siding, which was explained away as a raid on illicit liquor racketeers who were operating in the area, is rumored to have put an end to the so called “Monster in Maspeth.”

None of which actually happened, I am repeatedly told.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Following the gouged trail, it suddenly became apparent that an apparently orthodox and certainly more ordinary explanation for the disturbed earth at Calvary Cemetery was at hand.

It appeared that vehicle tracks were visible at the upland section of it, and no doubt they were either cleverly trying to disguise the risible horror of some wandering slug like mutation risen from Newtown Creek to wander the graveyard in the dead of night, or that the gouged turf of the track was instead some part of their grounds keeping function.

It is up to you, lords and ladies, to decide which theorem is likely true.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

You never know what you’re going to see at Calvary Cemetery, amongst the emerald devastations.

Also:

Remember that event in the fall which got cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy?

The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show presented by the Obscura Society NYC is back on at Observatory.